This ground-breaking book provides a fascinating insight into the relationship between sports (and leisure), religion and disability in both elite sport and recreation and leisure contexts. In the shadow of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games, at which athletes that were both able-bodied and disabled, provided an extravaganza of sporting excellence and drama, this text is a timely and important synthesis of ideas that have emerged in two previously distinct areas of research: (i) 'disability sport and leisure' and (ii) the 'theology of disability'.

Preface 1. Special Olympians as a 'Prophetic Sign' to the Modern Sporting Babel 2. Disability as a Path to Spiritual Enlightenment: An Ethnographic Account of the Significance of Religion in Paralympic Sport 3. Running the (Special) Race: New (Pauline) Perspectives on Disability and Theology of Sport 4. Towards a Theology of Disability Sport: A Misconstrued Game Plan 5. The Experience of Spirituality and Disability Sport for British Military Personnel Traumatically Injured in Iraq and Afghanistan: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis 6. Nature-Based Recreation, Spirituality, and Persons with Disabilities 7. Researching Religion, Disability, and Sport: Reflections and Possibilities 8. "Celebration" as the Spiritual Expression of Leisure and Sport: Reflections on the L'Arche Tradition and the Special Olympics 9. A Modern Conception of Flesh: Towards a Theology of Disability Sport 10. A Postcolonial Approach to Understanding Sport-Based Empowerment of People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Zambia: The Case of the Cultural Philosophy of Ubuntu 11. Radical Orthodoxy and the Emergence of Spiritual Hero-Athletes: Examining Lance Armstrong's "Illness" Narrative 12. Meet My Exes: Theological Reflections on Disability and Paralympic Sport-A Continuum of Ephemeral Deaths and Eternal Resurrection 13. Triumph From Anguish: The Inspiration of the Special Olympics 14. Christianity, Sport and Disability: A Case Study of the Role of Long-Distance Running in the Life of a Father and his Son who is Congenitally Blind and has Profound Intellectual Disabilities